Ten in One
I got up out of bed and walked over to the window. Today was my thirteen birthday. But I didn't expect much. I didn't expect a cake, balloons, a singing "Happy Birthday". I looked out of my bedroom window at the St. Mark's Orphanage. After taking a shower and putting on some clothes, I went to the other side of the building to go to the St. Mark's Orphanage Middle School. My first class is Science. We're learning about the ecology. Today we're taking a failed trip to a forest. "All right class," Mr. Burns said. "Before we go, let's recognize that today is Dennis's thirteen birthday. Everybody on the bus, we're finally leaving!" The teachers are so optimistic for no reason. We drove for about forty-five minutes. It seemed like forever when we finally stopped at the forest. "Everybody off the bus," Ms. Felix said. We lined up in five lines. Fortunately, my friend, Flint, was in my group. But unfortunately, my other friend, Hailey, was not. "Hey Flint," I said. "This is going to be boring." "The school makes us go on this trip every year. but every year, it's something new. Oh, by the way, happy birthday." Flint said. "Thanks," I said pessimistically. Our group went into the dense part of the forest. We were told to be careful not to get lost. We walked around and talked about the scientific names of trees. One kid, Cole, knew everything. Cole and I were looking at some weird looking beetles and suddenly, everybody was gone. "Perfect." Flint said. "We're lost." "Maybe we can find them," I said. We walked around trying to find them. We stopped to sit down on a log. Hailey appeared from behind a tree. "Hey, Hailey! You're lost, too?" I asked. "No, I was looking for you two," she said. "You've been gone for a while." "Do you know how to get back to the busses?" Flint asked excitedly. "I forgot," she said. "This is hopeless," Flint said, as he started to kick the log. "We'll never find them." I sat down on the ground. "Maybe we should wait," I suggested. The ground felt hollow. I began to fall down. I felt Flint and Hailey holding me up. "Don't let go!" I yelled. It was no use. We began to fall into a massive hole. We fell into a large pile of weapons. These are some weird looking guns, I thought. We walked around in these underground tunnels. We came to a room where there was a bluish light coming from a pod-shaped container. "This is so weird," Hailey said. I reached out to touch the container. It started to open. The blue light turned green. We all jumped back. "Wo," I said as I reached out to reach inside. I felt something grab my wrist. I fell over. The pod flew up into the air and burst into little bits. Tiny bits of shimmering light fell to ground. Sparks flew everywhere. I looked on my wrist. A watch. A watch had suddenly appeared on my wrist. But it didn't looked human. It seemed so--alien. "We have to get out of here!!!" Flint yelled. The noise of his voice made the walls of the underground cave rumble. "What did you do?" Hailey yelled. The walls started to collapse. My watch started to glow a bright green color. I pushed a button on the side. A faceplate popped up. A hologram of a weird looking creature appeared. I tried to push the button down to close the faceplate, but it didn't work. "We have to get out of here!" I yelled. I pushed the faceplate down. All I saw was green light. I felt different. Heavier. I felt like I had a head full over rocks. "AAAHHH!" Hailey screamed. I tried to tell Hailey not to scream, but then I saw my hands. They weren't hands, they were ... something entirely different. I punched the wall, which only made the caves worse. They started to fall. Pretty soon, we would be crushed. I grabbed Hailey and Flint and started to run for cover. We were about to be crushed, but we landed on ... grass. Flint looked at me. "Den? Is that you?" He asked. "It's me," I said, my voice sounding different. I don't know what happened to me." "You look like a monster," Hailey said. She sounded scared. "Actually, you look like a pile of rocks." Flint said. I began to see red light. I felt like I was being pulled from something. I felt ... normal. "How did you do that?" Hailey asked. Two robots picked us up and locked us into a cage. I looked at my watch. What are you...? I pressed the button on the side down. A hologram of a creature with tentacles appeared. I cycled through at least ten different creatures. I looked out of the crate and heard someone say: "The boy has the Myriatrix! What do we do now?" "We have to look at the aliens on it. They could be powerful." I looked at my watch. Aliens?